History Repeats Itself?
I have an easy life. I am reading 1848 a turning Point?, a used book I picked up for practically nothing on Amazon, with the edges turning yellow with age – and drinking the local cheap wine (which packs quite a wallop). Meanwhile, my cleaning lady cleans my apartment, making a hell of a racket cleaning my little carpet with a cheap vacuum cleaner.
Life down here has its little dramas – this morning the door fell off Ray’s refrigerator (my landlord who lives in the same house), making a hell of racket, dumping all all kinds of food on the floor. I help him fix it; earlier he had fixed the flush chain on my toilet.
But to get back to the book – it has two key phrases: revolutionary and reactionary. In the 1800s in Europe these two fought it out, back and forth – a history which has been largely forgotten And also, it might be said, in America – where the Founding Fathers were succeeded by Andrew Jackson, and then the Civil War. And even in the Middle East now, with the Arab Spring. The following are quotes from the Introduction:
While the revolutionaries disputed among themselves, the reactionaries gradually recovered their strength.
Fears of social upheaval had made the people willing to exchange liberty for order and entrust executive power to man who symbolized dictatorship (Napoleon III).
The cleaning lady has left, and I continue to read my book.
Earlier, I went for a long bicycle ride, which left me nice and tired. What more could I want?
Sounds pretty idalic!